


repetition

by ignitesthestars



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Enemy Lovers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 05:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5615230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignitesthestars/pseuds/ignitesthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They have met like this before.</p><p>(prompt: reylo, first kiss)</p>
            </blockquote>





	repetition

They have met like this before.

There is nothing soft in the way they come together. They scrape up against each other in the Force, their raw edges digging into each other. She is aggressively, relentlessly of the light.

He doesn’t know what he is, and she calls him on it every time.

“Why haven’t you killed me yet?”

The janky plasma of his weapon scatters red light over her face; the steady silver glow of hers illuminates them both. She is sweat slicked and panting, the depth of her calm slowly draining.

His lips peel back in a grin, or maybe a snarl. “Because every time we meet, you slip a little closer to the dark.”

They break away. It’s Dagobah this time, the Force swimming around them in pools and eddies. It’s hard to be sharp here.

“Is that what you tell Snoke?” Sparks shatter around them, the humming roar of their lightsabers crashing together again blocking out the ambient sounds of the swamp. “Is that what you tell yourself?”

“Enlighten me, Jedi.” They spin, whir, clash again. This dance would be getting old, if it didn’t fuel him like nothing else. “Why do you think you still live?”

It’s her turn to grin, and the expression fuels the light in her eyes, wild and determined. The word _pure_  lances through him. He wants to ruin it. He wants to save it. He wants–

“Because there’s light in you still,” she says. He growls, swinging at her with abandon; she’s too fast, slipping away, fending him off, but he’s too good to let her slip under his guard. 

The scar on his face burns in memory.

“Would someone of the light do as I have done? Slaughtered people, villages, their own father?”

“Would someone who thinks they’re beyond the reach of the light need to prove it so thoroughly?” Sweat beads on her forehead, dripping into her eyes. She blinks, but there’s still no taking advantage of it.

She is unbreachable. This is what it is to possess surety, and he thinks that he should have played this game better when she was younger, before she attained it.

Her defence switches to attack on the whim of a rising sandstorm. He thinks what a shame it would have been to miss this. His step back turns into a stumble, his growl into a snarl. But it’s the grin that hits him, blinding and beautiful. It stops him at the wrong moment and there’s a violent hissing as his lightsaber flies into the swamp.

“You’d win more if you could stay calm,” she points out. The silver glow lingers for a moment, before a more muted _snap-hiss_  shuts the light away. They stand there, heaving, the Force thick enough in the air to taste.

“You’d win forever if you embraced the power of the dark side. Tell me, what does your precious Resistance think of you leaving me alive?”

She tips her head to one side. He remembers her when they first met. Younger, still defiant. “Do you want me to kill you, Ben?”

There’s that word again. _Want_  beats a tattoo along his pulse, whispering things he will never have. He reaches out wordlessly, but her hand snaps around his wrist before he can call his lightsaber from the swamp and start anew. Her grip has the same strength as the rest of her, and she bears down on it, using him as leverage to stand on her toes.

“Do you want to die?”

He lowers his head until the shadow of him blocks what dim light exists on this planet from her eyes. Her breath, still harsh and uneven, ghosts over his skin. “Ben Solo is dead. You never met him.”

“You changed your name.” The scorn in her voice stings, even though he is powerful, of the dark side, leader of the Knights of Ren. “It doesn’t kill you. It doesn’t erase what you were. All it does it help you run faster.”

“Rich words coming from you.”

They’re surrounded in shadow, but that glint is still in her gaze regardless. There’s no snuffing the light out of her. He wants to reach down her throat and snuff it out. He wants to stand guard over it and ensure no one else ever does.

Coveting things, he remembers, is a path to the dark side.

“That’s the difference between you and I.” Her voice is low and intense and a tremor of _something_  runs through it. She is made of heat. He already knows what it is to be burnt by her. “I know how to pick my battles.”

He kisses her. 

It’s the solution or it’s a whole new problem. He thinks she’ll let him go. He thinks he’ll be able to retrieve his lightsaber. He doesn’t think at all, because her grip tightens until it begins to hurt even him and the Force flares around them, her inner struggle sending it surging in the same way their battle had.

She kisses him back. It’s a harsh, gasping thing. He doesn’t know who steps in first and doesn’t care, doesn’t care about anything beyond the abrupt press of their bodies against each other, the way her teeth pull at his lower lip, the shock of something he remembers as pleasure.

For once, the words that come to him are his own.

_Every time we meet, you slip a little closer to the dark._

He expects the thrill of triumph. But she breaks away first, and all he feels is loss.

“You’re tempted.” There’s a rasp to his voice. He doesn’t recognise it.

There is turmoil in her. In the Force. He should exploit it. This is the moment. He has been _chasing_  this chance.

And all of a sudden, everything stills. She closes her eyes. The _air_  breathes.

“Everyone’s tempted,” she says. “It’s what you do about it that counts.”

She leaves him. He remains. The urge to destroy something flares, and dies before anything else can.

They have met like this before.

It follows that they’ll do it again.


End file.
